Nines: Bid, Trump, Take

A trick-taking game invented by Nazmi Elyigit. Bid what your side will take, name your trump, then hold on.

Nines was invented by Nazmi Elyigit. This app is an implementation of their game.

Four players, two against two, thirty-six cards, nine tricks. You bid the number of tricks your side will take, the highest bidder names trump, and then it gets ruthless.

Because the rules give no quarter. You must beat the best card on the table if you can. You must trump when you are void. You must beat a trump already down. And there is no exception for your partner — if the only card that takes the trick is yours, you take it off them, and they have to sit there and watch.

Which is what makes it fast. The declaring side needs their contract, the defenders need the number of tricks that makes it unreachable, and one of them usually gets there by trick three or four. Every hand rides on a number you committed to before a single card was played.

The hand is played out to all nine tricks regardless, because the ones after that are the score: declare six, take seven, and the seventh is worth having.

WHAT IS IN THE APP

• Solo against an AI at four strengths, entirely offline • Real tables with friends, on iPhone or in a browser — the same table, either way • One account across your devices, with rating, record and replays that follow you • A six-hand tutorial that shows you the rule by refusing to let you break it • Hand review after every game, with exact numbers • A strategy guide measured rather than asserted

ABOUT THE ANALYSIS

Because the rules are so forcing, the game can be solved exactly. After a hand is over the app can tell you not just what you played but what every alternative was worth, in tricks, with both sides playing perfectly. Those are not estimates.

The same solving found what the game actually rewards, and it is not what card sense expects: a void is the most valuable thing on your hand, a nine is next, and long suits are worth almost nothing. All three follow from compulsory ruffing.

No sign-up, no ads, no tracking.